Changes to food waste and the impact on you

20

Jun2017

You might have been hearing recently that there will be changes to how your food waste is collected, and where you should be depositing food remains now that you can’t use your black bin for this type of rubbish. In Belfast, the council have been implementing changes to discourage residents from putting any sort of food waste into their black bins from now on, to reduce the contamination of other waste streams. This announcement is part of a wider initiative to reduce the need for landfill sites. With these changes to food waste, how will this impact you? Find out more in our blog post below.

Throwing food waste away

If you have food waste to throw away, you should be using the biodegradable green bags provided free of charge by the council and putting these bags into your brown food waste caddy, instead of putting any food waste in your black bin. This means no more scraping the remains of your plate into the bin, throwing out of date food from the fridge in there, or even the potato peelings from your Sunday roast preparation. If you continue to throw food waste into your black bin and get found out, you can be fined and won’t have your black bin collected. This is all pretty confusing, but tips provided from the council for using your bins properly can be found here.

Why not in your black bin?

When food waste is collected separately, it can be used to make compost, therefore reducing the need for landfill. Landfill sites are ugly, and create toxins which pollute the air, water and land around them, and they also contribute to greenhouse gases which have bigger implications for global warming. Anything we can do to reduce the amount of black bin waste is a positive.

How can you reduce food waste?

Here’s a few tips to help you manage these new changes more easily:

Manage this new system with some clever kitchen hacks to make it a bit easier, like having your new biodegradable bags on a handy roll beside your food caddy like this

Use up leftovers with these recipes from Love Food Hate Waste so you throw less food away (and perhaps discover a scrumptious new favourite dinner in the process?)

Take a look at this menu planner download, which helps you manage food more effectively so that you use up everything and waste hardly anything.

At ReGen, we are committed to refining our service offering so that our waste streams remain as uncontaminated as possible, and we work closely with our customers to achieve this. If you have any questions or if you want to talk to us about our bespoke waste management solutions, talk to us today.